if is EQ, Rumple, Jafar, Aladdin, or any other person, they will not be thinking, oh, cant be them, bc they are all to small, nope, they would not even remenber that part and if they are asked, they will probably say that was a simple vision, so not the real thing.
Ok, I’m going to be the dissenting voice, I guess. If you look at that footage, this isn’t in fact a very tall actor/stunt double (I was joking about Clegane of course) — it’s some kind of special effect that makes the hooded figure inhumanly large. I agree with you that this is a vision, so the real fight might not take this shape, but even if the size of Emma’s opponent is scaled down for the real fight, the metaphorical meaning of this huge hooded figure killing her is about an enemy that’s “larger than life” — something that appears absolutely unsurmountable. This is what makes me think it’s some kind of meta-nemesis, not just another regular villain. Unless there’s something we don’t know about Jafar. The reason I don’t think it’s either Rumple or Regina is because even if they’ve both been Emma’s antagonists at different points of the story, they have also always been her equals. There have been points where Emma had the upper hand, and vice versa, but all in all, this has always been a struggle between equals. Yes, there is a family and emotional connection with both characters, but the visual language of this scene is precisely not about familiarity: it’s about total otherness. Again, as a not so subtle visual metaphor, this seems to be about an enemy that’s augmented by whatever Emma profoundly fears, and lets face it, that’s not Rumple or EQ. She never really feared either of them, even when the odds were overwhelmingly against her, or they had the upper hand and she felt a sense of defeat
Well this is ouat, what happens in 601 can change by epi 605 or even sooner, another possibility she can be fighting death itself, grim reaper( that is some mythologies sometimes take a personalization of a Male or female) which would be hilarious if was that , bc grim reaper tv is always predicting cancellation or not from tv shows.